Sabado, Marso 31, 2018

Without the Senate’s counterpart bill for the postponement of the
village poll, the barangay and SK (Youth) election in May 14 this year is
inevitable."Tapos na ang Senado, tapos na ang Kongreso. Wala na kami, e
(inaudible). Tapos na iyong barangay election," Senator Cynthia
Villar told me when I asked her last Friday about the absence of the
counterpart bill from the Upper House and Congress already in recess and will
be back into business a day before the poll.

Everybody will be happy as of April this year. Ingratiation and vote
buying by the candidates for the village chiefs, the council members, and even
the parents of the SK or Sangguniang Kabataan will be ubiquitous in every nook
and cranny of the country.

A first class town mayor told me that he will interfere by funding the
candidacy of his village chiefs despite the monies given by his rivals to those
barangay kapitans.

The 2019 local election will be costly for some candidates running for
election and reelection in the 44 towns and three cities’ province of
Pangasinan, a town mayor cited.

The mayor, who asked anonymity, said a gubernatorial aspirant needs
about half-a-billion pesos just to buy votes to ingratiate from the voters
and the mayors.

“Ilagay mo
Five Million Pesos allocation sa 44 town mayors, that will be P220 million. How
about the five million pesos for each of the 44 towns where the candidate will
buy votes? That will be another P220 million. How much will be the total
expenses? A staggering P440 million!” he
cited.

A bag that contains millions of pesos used by a politician to buy votes in the Philippines.

He said the almost half – a-billion price tag will not be enough to effectively
clinch the provincial diadem, he needs another hundreds of millions to have an
edge in a poll where wherewithal counts as the silver bullet.

Biyernes, Marso 23, 2018

Former Army General Fortunato Abat, a warrior of the Mindanao
Campaign versus the Moro, died at 7 p.m of March 7, 2018 at the Veterans Memorial
Medical Center (VMMC).

“The Day We Nearly Lost Mindanao” was a book authored by then Army Commanding General Abat.

My father was assigned in Cotabato City
during this conflict in the middle of the 1970s and he narrated to me how they
called the Northrop F-5 combat jets from Mactan Air Base to drop napalm bombs
against the Libyan government backed Moro National Liberation Front
(MNLF) under the leadership of Nur Misuari, a former University of the
Philippines' professor, to deter them in conquering Cotabato City.

WARRIORS - Army Commanding General Fortunato Abat accepts the surrender of a Muslimrebel's commander and his battle scarred warriors. Photo Credit: General Allan Luga

According to the March 1973 issue of
the Far Eastern Economic Review, the first shipment of firearms, courtesy
of Libya’s Strongman Muammar Qaddafi and Sulu born Sabah State
Minister Tun Datu Haji Mustapha, landed in December 1972 at the town of
Lebak in Cotabato province. Boats, each powered with three Volvo-Penta 170
engines, brought in Belgian made Cal 7.62 rifles, anti-personnel mines,
grenades of the cylindrical unserrated type, plastic explosives, Cal 30 LMG,
Browning carbines, Cal 30 Mis and several thousand rounds of ammunition to
Cotabato and other landing sites regularly for the next fourteen months.

Do you know that a poor Filipino
nuclear family of seven, yes seven because the poor here ironically breed like
rabbit, as based on my conversation with some destitutes, contend themselves
with a kilo of rice that they mixed with patis (salted fish sauce) or bagoong (anchovies), HesusMariaHusef, to survive the daily grind?

Because of abject poverty many of them
forget what viand is all about. Their grown up children could not even spell
V-I-A-N-D because malnutrition sapped out their intellectual ability.

When then presidential candidate
Rodrigo Duterte stumped the provinces and cities, the great unwashed saw the
light of hope at the other end of the tunnel when the firebrand candidate
promised a P15 kilos of rice to the poor (manilatimes.net June 17, 2016).

When Duterte failed to make true his
promise, the poor put their trust on the P27 a kilo of the staple courtesy of
stocks from the government run National Food Authority.

But that price is still a pipe dream
son of a gun!

Despite the bumper harvest from the
farmers and the available funds from the National Food Authority to buy a kilo
of palay at P17, the P27 a kilo of rice in the market is still elusive, thanks
but no thanks to the miscreants at the NFA who conspired with the wheeler
dealing traders by mixing the cheap staple and sell it from P37 to P45 a kilo.

The impoverished who trembled
with starvation at corner could not comprehend what hit them.

LINGAYEN – With the audacity of the Department of Education not to allow the local government units in the country to lease the part of the lot owned by the latter, the mayor here uses usufruct to protect her town interest.

Mayor Josefina Castaneda said that before the DepEd can use the municipal land, her office requested the executives of the education department to have a usufruct contract with this Capital Town in Pangasinan.

MAYORS - Lingayen Mayor Josefina "Iday" Castaneda (left) and Binmaley Mayor Simplicio Rosario. Both mayors of Pangasinan have different experiences with the Department of Education in relation to their towns' lot where the DepEd used.

According to the Civil Code of the
Philippines, the contract gives a right to enjoy the property of
another with the obligation of preserving its form and substance, unless the
title constituting it or the law otherwise provides.

“We required them first to sign a usufruct before we allow them to
use our land,” Castaneda said.

The law cited that the owner of the
property can end the usufruct by grounds like prescription, termination of the
right of the person constituting the usufruct.

The statement of the mayor happened
after the DepEd through Region - 1 Director Ruby Torio rejected the request of
Binmaley Mayor Simplicio Rosario to allow him to use 2,
396 square meters (sqm) for the construction of a mall Primark Group of
Companies-LDC in the 8, 358.70 sq.m presently occupied by the Binmaley Central
School.

Q & A: Political columnist Mortz
Ortigoza interviewed recently Senator Grace Poe on the mocks of House of
Representatives Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez that the House of Senate was Mabagal
na Kapuluan (Slow Upper Chamber) in terms of passing, debating, and
concluding the bills there. Ortigoza posed also to Poe, a presidential
candidate in 2016 poll, about the procrastination of Congress in the amendment
of the Public Service Act (PSA) otherwise known as
Commonwealth Act No. 146 that should have avoided the tragic
incidents that befell Philippines’ Overseas Contract Workers (OFW) abroad
because they could not find gainful jobs in the Philippines. EXCERPTS:

MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA (MCO): Domestic
workers like Joana Demafiles and other female OFWs have been abused, raped, or
murdered by their masters in the Middle East Countries. Experts blamed the lack
of gainful jobs in the country thus the migration abroad of these people. Can
we blame Congress because its members did not act to open up the business
equities for foreign investors in the PSA so jobs come to the Philippines? Kung
ginawa ng Congress iyon 20 years ago we have probably avoided these Dimafiles
liked cases.

SENATOR GRACE POE: Kasi noon siyempre
the government has to take care of its own business assets, di ba? So ngayon we
are opening it kasi mas established na tayo. Kaya iyong Telco companies na
sinasabi ng ating pangulo na magkakaroon ng third telco player, puweding
fourth, fifth, mas may competition. Noon kasi kailangan nationalized, bago pa
lang tayo. The government had to invest and we saved the Filipinos would own it
but now I think there are more opportunities to everyone.

(Before, the government has to take care of its business, am I
right? Now, we are opening it because we are now established. That’s why the
telecommunication companies that the president wanted to have a third telco
player. We can even have fourth, fifth players so there would be more
competition. In the past we need to nationalize because our industries were in
infancy).

The government had to invest and we
saved the Filipinos would own it but now I think there are more opportunities
to everyone.

MCO: Speaker Alvarez ridiculed
incessantly in the past the Senate as the Mabagal na Kapulungan.
He said they have passed in the House of Representatives countless of bills
like the PSA in the third and final readings while the Senate only tackles now
the PSA?

(You know that what he (Speaker) usually said. The important thing
for us in the Senate we don’t pass in haste the bill because we were careful.
We don’t say the members of the House of Representatives were not careful. Our
conscience is clear that we screen carefully what would be the priority bills
to be passed)

MCO: Was there a case where the House
of Senate passed a bill compared to its version at the House of Representative
where the congressmen there did not act on it?

(Just like before we prioritized the Freedom of Information (bill)
that the House of Representatives did not pass. Now, we are in the advance
stage of the Freedom of Information and other law unlike what he said, I don’t
want to discuss it, what we need is courtesy between the two chambers).

Sabado, Marso 3, 2018

The reasons why some high officials of the Philippine National Police
and National Bureau of Investigation in Pangasinan were sacked and reassigned
to either a floating position or thrown into a far flung area, according to my
source, because they did not act in raiding and arresting those illegal bookies
of the number game of chance despite the presence of the government
sanctioned SpeedGame, Incorporation that was given the franchised as the
Authorized Agent Corporations (AAC) of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes to
operate in January this year in the 44 towns and 4 cities’ Pangasinan.

Son of a gun, lawyers called this actuation of the brass as "non
feasance" or failure to perform an act that is required by law.
He told me that as of this moment many towns in Pangasinan have bookies that
sneaked out to perpetuate their nefarious trades so they can siphon the
millions of pesos bet monies despite the heavy criminal penalties that await
them in case they are apprehended by the law enforcers.

The punishment clauses in Section 3 of RA 9287 or the Act
Increasing the Penalties for Illegal Number Games, Others say:

a) The penalty of imprisonment from thirty (30) days to ninety
(90) days, if such person acts as a bettor;

b) The penalty of imprisonment from six (6) years and one (1) day to
eight (8) years, if such person acts as a personnel or staff of an illegal
numbers game operation; The same penalty shall likewise be imposed to any
person who allows his vehicle, house, building or land to be used in the operation
of the illegal numbers games.

c) The penalty of imprisonment from eight (8) years and one (1) day to
ten (10) years, if such person acts as a collector or agent;

d) The penalty of imprisonment from ten (10) years and one (1) day to
twelve (12) years, if such person acts as a coordinator, controller or
supervisor;

Because there were not enough attractive paying jobs in the
Philippines, Joanna Demafelis, 29, took her chances as servant for
the family of a Lebanese and a Syrian couple in Kuwait – a country
notorious for abuses among foreign workers.
Demafelis had not only been looked down, but abused, harmed, and murdered by
her masters who hid her cadaver in a freezer in an abandoned apartment for a
year while they absconded to another country.

The Lebanese and Syrian couple, the alleged killers of Filipina maidJoanna Demafelis? A photo grab from the Facebook's community page.

The resident of Sara, Iloilo was only one of the countless Filipinas
who suffered those brazen inhuman abuses like wanton rapes because members of
the Congress – yes Virginia those publicity hungry senators and
congressmen you saw on TV in a circus called public hearings – did not act if
not procrastinate in amending the Public Safety Acts (PSA).